The Bains Agenda

The British empire covered around 1/4 of the world’s land mass at its peak, bringing destruction wherever it went. Officially, it is dissolved. However, the legacy is alive and kicking.

The immigration patterns in the UK are directly linked to empire. The term British Asian refers primarily to people of South Asian descent in Britain. This includes myself and British Indians are the largest ethnicity by nationality.

Even though I class myself as English, because I am born and bred English, I am a child of Empire just as the other 5.5 million Asians in the UK are. One ran the country – Rishi Sunak.

The empire carved up the world without care for borders and this has led to disaster. The partition of 1947 led to bloodshed and my ethnic group, the Sikhs of the Punjab, had their homeland torn apart.

Sikhs fought bravely in both world wars for the British and in return got partition, racism upon arrival to Britain and to this day those like grapple with the realities of that for our identity.

The current situation in Palestine is a direct result of British policy historically.

These arguments are not new but what I would argue that is, is that the mentality of the Empire has not died.

Blair’s illegal invasion of Iraq alongside the new modern day empire, the American empire, was only in 2003. This was in my lifetime as someone still quite young.

Britain, rightly or wrongly (and there may be some situations where intervention may be morally just), has been directly involved in military operations since the Empire officially dissolved such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and now Palestine.

Whether it be sending troops, providing arms (as Starmer does to Israel to this day) , the Empire has not loosened its grip.